the museum of extraordinary things by alice hoffman

8/13/2019 The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-museum-of-extraordinary-things-by-alice-hoffman 1/16



{ }

O N E

the world

in a globe

**********

yOU WOULD HINK it would be impossible to find anything new

in the world, creatures no man has ever seen before, one-of-a-

kind oddities in which nature has taken a backseat to the coursing pulse of

the fantastical and the marvelous. I can tell you with certainty that such

things exist, for beneath the water there are beasts as huge as elephants

with hundreds of legs, and in the skies, rocks thrown alit from the heavens

burn through the bright air and fall to earth. Tere are men with such

odd characteristics they must hide their faces in order to pass through thestreets unmolested, and women who have such peculiar features they live

in rooms without mirrors. My father kept me away from such anomalies

when I was young, though I lived above the exhibition that he owned

in Coney Island, the Museum of Extraordinary Tings. Our house was

divided into two distinct sections; half we lived in, the other half housed

the exhibitions. In this way, my father never had to leave what he lovedbest in the world. He had added on to the original house, built in 1862,

the year the Coney Island and Brooklyn Railroad began the first horse-



A L I C E H O F FMAN

drawn carriage line to our city. My father created the large hall in which

to display the living wonders he employed, all of whom performed unusual

acts or were born with curious attributes that made others willing to pay

to see them.

My father was both a scientist and a magician, but he declared that it

was in literature wherein we discovered our truest natures. When I was

only a child he gave me the poet Whitman to read, along with the playsof Shakespeare. In such great works I found enlightenment and came to

understand that everything God creates is a miracle, individually and

unto itself. A rose is the pinnacle of beauty, but no more so than the exhib-

its in my father’s museum, each artfully arranged in a wash of formalde-

hyde inside a large glass container. Te displays my father presented were

unique in all the world: the preserved body of a perfectly formed infant

without eyes, unborn monkey twins holding hands, a tiny snow-white

alligator with enormous jaws. I often sat upon the stairs and strained

to catch a glimpse of such marvels through the dark. I believed that each

remarkable creature had been touched by God’s hand, and that anything

singular was an amazement to humankind, a hymn to our maker.

When I needed to go through the museum to the small wood-paneled

room where my father kept his library, so that he might read to me, hewould blindfold me so I wouldn’t be shocked by the shelves of curiosities

that brought throngs of customers through the doors, especially in the sum-

mertime, when the beaches and the grander parks were filled with crowds

from Manhattan, who came by carriage and ferry, day-trip steamship

or streetcar. But the blindfold my father used was made of thin muslin,

and I could see through the fabric if I kept my eyes wide. Tere before mewere the many treasures my father had collected over the years: the hand

with eight fingers, the human skull with horns, the preserved remains of



the museum of extraordinary things

a scarlet-colored long-legged bird called a spoonbill, rocks veined with

luminous markings that glowed yellow in the dark, as if stars themselves

had been trapped inside stone. I was fascinated by all that was strange:

the jaw of an ancient elephant called a mastodon and the shoes of a giant

found in the mountains of Switzerland. Tough these exhibits made my

skin prickle with fear, I felt at home among such things. Yet I knew that

a life spent inside a museum is not a life like any other. Sometimes I had

dreams in which the jars broke and the floor was awash with a murky

green mixture of water and salt and formaldehyde. When I woke fromsuch nightmares, the hem of my nightgown would be soaking wet. It made

me wonder how far the waking world was from the world of dreams.

My mother died of influenza when I was only an infant, and although

I never knew her, whenever I dreamed of terrible, monstrous creatures

and awoke shivering and crying in my bed, I wished I had a mother who

loved me. I always hoped my father would sing me to sleep, and treat me

as if I were a treasure, as valued as the museum exhibits he often paid

huge sums to buy, but he was too busy and preoccupied, and I under-

stood his life’s work was what mattered most. I was a dutiful daughter,

at least until I reached a certain age. I was not allowed to play with other

children, who would not have understood where I lived or how I’d beenraised, nor could I go upon the streets of Brooklyn on my own, where there

were men who were waiting to molest innocent girls like me.

Long ago what the Indians called Narrioch was a deserted land, used in

winter for grazing cattle and horses and oxen. Te Dutch referred to itas Konijn Eylandt, Rabbit Island, and had little interest in its sandy

shores. Now there were those who said Coney Island had become a vile




place, much like Sodom, where people thought only of pleasure. Some com-

munities, like Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, where the mil-

lionaires built their estates, had their own trains with paid conductors to

keep out the riffraff. rains for the masses left from the Brooklyn Bridge

erminal and took little more than half an hour to reach the beachfront

communities. Te subway was being built, to begin running beneath the

East River in 1908, so that more and more throngs would be able to

leave the brutal heat of Manhattan in the summertime. Te island was a

place of contradiction, stretching from the wicked areas where men werealternately entertained and cheated in houses of ill repute and saloons,

to the iron pavilions and piers where the great John Philip Sousa had

brought his orchestra to play beneath the stars in the year I was born.

Coney Island was, above all else, a place of dreams, with amusements

like no others, rides that defied the rules of gravity, concerts and games

of chance, ballrooms with so many electric lights they glowed as if on fire.

It was here that there had once been a hotel in the shape of an elephant,

which proudly stood 162 feet high until it burned to the ground, here the

world’s first roller coaster, the Switchback Railway, gave birth to more

and more elaborate and wilder rides.

Te great parks were the Steeplechase and Luna Park, whose star

attraction, the famous horse King, dove from a high platform into a pool

of water. On Surf Avenue was the aptly named Dreamland, which wasbeing built and would soon rise across the street, so that we could see its

towers from our garden path. Tere were hundreds of other attractions

along Surf Avenue, up to Ocean Parkway, so many entertainments I

didn’t know how people chose. For me the most beautiful constructions

were the carousels, with their magical bejeweled carved animals, many

created by Jewish craftsmen from the Ukraine. Te El Dorado, whichwas being installed at the foot of Dreamland Park, was a true amaze -

ment, three-tiered and teeming with animals of every sort. My favorites




were the tigers, so fierce their green eyes sparked with an inner light, and,

of course, the horses with their manes flying out behind them, so real I

imagined that if I were ever allowed onto one, I might ride away and

never return.

Electricity was everywhere, snaking through Brooklyn, turning night

into day. Its power was evident in a showing made by electrocuting a

poor elephant named opsy, who had turned on a cruel, abusive trainer.

I was not yet ten when Edison planned to prove that his form of electric-

ity was safe, while declaring that his rival, Westinghouse, had producedsomething that was a danger to the world. If Westinghouse’s method could

kill a pachyderm, what might it do to the common man? I happened to be

there on that day, walking home from the market with our housekeeper,

Maureen. Tere was a huge, feverish crowd gathered, all waiting to see

the execution, though it was January and the chill was everywhere.

“Keep walking,” Maureen said, not breaking her stride, pulling me

along by my arm. She had on a wool coat and a green felt hat, her most

prized possession, bought from a famed milliner on wenty-third Street

in Manhattan. She was clearly disgusted by the bloodthirsty atmosphere.

“People will disappoint you with their cruelty every time.”

I wasn’t so sure Maureen was right, for there was compassion to be

found among the crowd as well. I had spied a girl on a bench with her

mother. She was staring at poor opsy and crying. She appeared to bekeeping a vigil, a soulful little angel with a fierce expression. I, myself,

did not dare to show my fury or indulge in my true emotions. I wished

I might have sat beside this other girl, and held her hand, and had her

as my friend, but I was forced away from the dreadful scene. In truth, I

never had a friend of my own age, though I longed for one.

All the same, I loved Brooklyn and the magic it contained. Te city wasmy school, for although compulsory education laws had gone into effect

in 1894, no one enforced them, and it was easy enough to escape public




education. My father, for instance, sent a note to the local school board

stating I was disabled, and this was accepted without requirement of any

further proof. Coney Island then was my classroom, and it was a won-

drous one. Te parks were made of papier-mâché, steel, and electricity,

and their glow could be seen for miles, as though our city was a fairyland.

Another girl in my constrained circumstances might have made a lad-

der out of strips torn from a quilt, or formed a rope fashioned of her own

braided hair so she might let herself out the window and experience the

enchantment of the shore. But whenever I had such disobedient thoughts, I would close my eyes and tell myself I was ungrateful. I was convinced

that my mother, were she still alive, would be disappointed in me if I

failed to do as I was told.

My father’s museum employed a dozen or more living players during the

season. Each summer the acts of wonder performed in the exhibition hall

several times a day, in the afternoon and in the evenings, each display-

ing his or her own rare qualities. I was not allowed to speak to them,

though I longed to hear the stories of their lives and learn how they came

to be in Brooklyn. I was too young, my father said. Children under the

age of ten were not allowed inside the museum, owing to their impres-

sionable natures. My father included me in this delicate group. If one ofthe wonders was to pass I was to lower my eyes, count to fifty, and pre-

tend that person didn’t exist. Tey came and went over the years, some

returning for more seasons, others vanishing without a word. I never got

to know the Siamese twins who were mirror images of each other, their

complexions veined with pallor, or the man with a pointed head, who

drowsed between his performances, or the woman who grew her hair solong she could step on it. Tey all left before I could speak my first words.

My memories were of glances, for such people were never gruesome to me,




they were unique and fascinating, and terribly brave in the ways they

revealed their most secret selves.

Despite my father’s rules, as I grew older I would peer down from

my window in the early mornings, when the employees arrived in the

summer light, many wearing cloaks despite the mild weather, to ensure

they would not be gawked at, perhaps even beaten, on their way to their

employment. My father called them wonders, but to the world they were

freaks. Tey hid their features so that there would be no stones flung, no

sheriff’s men called in, no children crying out in terror and surprise. In thestreets of New York they were considered abominations, and because there

were no laws to protect them, they were often ill used. I hoped that on our

porch, beneath the shade of the pear tree, they would find some peace.

My father had come to this country from France. He called himself Pro-

fessor Sardie, though that was not in fact his name. When I asked what

his given name had been, he said it was nobody’s business. We all have

secrets, he’d told me often enough, nodding at my gloved hands.

I believed my father to be a wise and brilliant man, as I believed

Brooklyn to be a place not unlike heaven, where miracles were wrought.

Te Professor had principles that others might easily call strange, his own

personal philosophy of health and well-being. He had been pulled away from magic by science, which he considered far more wondrous than card

tricks and sleight of hand. Tis was why he had become a collector of the

rare and unusual, and why he so strictly oversaw the personal details

of our lives. Fish was a part of our daily nourishment, for my father

believed that we took on the attributes of our diet, and he made certain

I ate a meal of fish every day so my constitution might echo the abilitiesof these creatures. We bathed in ice water, good for the skin and inner

organs. My father had a breathing tube constructed so that I could remain




soaking underwater in the claw-foot tub, and soon my baths lasted an

hour or more. I had only to take a puff of air in order to remain beneath

the surface. I felt comfortable in this element, a sort of girlfish, and soon I

didn’t feel the cold as others did, becoming more and more accustomed to

temperatures that would chill others to the bone.

In the summer my father and I swam in the sea together each night,

braving the waves until November, when the tides became too frigid.

Several times we nearly reached Dead Horse Bay, more than five miles

away, a far journey for even the most experienced swimmer. We contin-ued an exercise routine all through the winter so that we might increase

our breathing capacity, sprinting along the shore. “Superior health calls

for superior action,” my father assured me. He believed running would

maintain our health and vigor when it was too cold to swim. We trotted

along the shore in the evenings, our skins shimmering with sweat, ignor-

ing people in hats and overcoats who laughed at us and shouted out the

same half-baked joke over and over again: What are you running from?

You, my father would mutter. Fools not worth listening to, he told me.

Sometimes it would snow, but we would run despite the weather,

for our regimen was strict. All the same, on snowy nights I would lag

behind so I might appreciate the beauty of the beach. I would reach into

the snow-dotted water. Te frozen shore made me think of diamonds. I

was enchanted by these evenings. Te ebb and flow at the shore was bonewhite, asparkle. My breath came out in a fog and rose into the milky sky.

Snow fell on my eyelashes, and all of Brooklyn turned white, a world in

a globe. Every snowflake that I caught was a miracle unlike any other.

I had long black hair that I wore braided, and I possessed a serious andquiet demeanor. I understood my place in the world and was grateful to

be in Brooklyn, my home and the city that Whitman himself had loved




so well. I was well spoken and looked older than my age. Because of my

serious nature, few would guess I was not yet ten. My father preferred

that I wear black, even in the summertime. He told me that in the village

in France where he’d grown up, all the girls did so. I suppose my mother,

long gone, had dressed in this fashion as a young girl, when my father

had first fallen in love with her. Perhaps he was reminded of her when

I donned a black dress that resembled the one she wore. I was nothing

like my mother, however. I’d been told she was a great beauty, with pale

honey-colored hair and a calm disposition. I was dark and plain. When I looked at the ugly twisted cactus my father kept in our parlor, I thought

I more likely resembled this plant, with its gray ropy stems. My father

swore it bloomed once a year with one glorious blossom, but I was always

asleep on those occasions, and I didn’t quite believe him.

Although I was shy, I did have a curious side, even though I had been

told a dozen times over that curiosity could be a girl’s ruination. I won-

dered if I had inherited this single trait from my mother. Our house-

keeper, Maureen Higgins, who had all but raised me, had warned me

often enough that I should keep my thoughts simple and not ask too many

questions or allow my mind to wander. And yet Maureen herself had a

dreamy look when she instructed me, which led me to presume that she

didn’t follow her own dictates. When Maureen began to allow me to run

errands and help with the shopping, I meandered through Brooklyn, as far as Brighton Beach, little over a mile away. I liked to sit by the docks

and listen to the fishermen, despite the rough language they used, for they

spoke of their travels across the world when I had never even been as far

as Manhattan, though it was easy enough to walk across the Brooklyn

Bridge or the newer, gleaming Williamsburg Bridge.

Tough I had an inquisitive soul, I was always obedient when it cameto the Professor’s rules. My father insisted I wear white cotton gloves in

the summer and a creamy kid leather pair when the chill set in. I toler-




ated this rule and did as I was told, even though the gloves felt scratchy

on summer days and in winter chafed and left red marks on my skin. My

hands had suffered a deformity at birth, and I understood that my father

did not wish me to be thought of with the disdain that greeted the living

wonders he employed.

Our housekeeper was my only connection to the outside world. An Irish

woman of no more than thirty, Maureen had once had a boyfriend whohad burned her face with sulfuric acid in a fit of jealous rage. I didn’t care

that she was marked by scars. Maureen had seen to my upbringing ever

since I was an infant. She’d been my only company, and I adored her, even

though I knew my father thought her to be uneducated and not worth

speaking to about issues of the mind. He preferred her to wear a gray dress

and a white apron, a proper maid’s uniform. My father paid Maureen’s

rent in a rooming house near the docks, a cheap and unpleasant place, she

always said, that was not for the likes of me. I never knew where she went

after washing up our dinner plates, for she was quick to reach for her coat

and slip out the door, and I hadn’t the courage to run after her.

Maureen was smart and able, despite my father’s opinion, and she

often treated me as an equal. I liked to sit on the back steps beside her as

we took our lunch together. She fixed lettuce and butter sandwiches toshare with me. I thought she was quite beautiful, despite her scars.

She was the one person other than my father who knew of my defor -

mity, and she concocted a mixture of aloe and mint to rub between my

fingers. I was grateful for both her kindness and her matter-of-fact air.

“It fixes most things,” she said knowingly of the salve. “Except for my

face.” Unfortunately, the elixir did nothing for me either, yet I grew accus-

tomed to its scent and used it nightly. Maureen smoked cigarettes in the




backyard although my father had expressly forbidden her to do so. Only

whores had such habits, he said, and besides, he had a tremendous dread of

fire, for a single spark could ignite the entire museum and we would lose

everything. He stood on the roof with buckets of water during summer

storms, keeping a close watch on the movement of the lightning when it

split through the sky. His collection was irreplaceable. In the off months,

when the museum was shuttered, he covered the glass cases with white

linen, as if putting the mummified creatures on display to bed for a long

winter’s rest. He was surprisingly gentle at these times. “I’ll sneak you intothe exhibits if you want,” Maureen offered every now and then, though

she was well aware that children under the age of ten were banned from

entrance.

“I think I’ll wait,” I remarked when Maureen suggested I break my

father’s rules and enter the museum. I was not the rebel I later came to be.

I was nine and three quarters at the time and hadn’t much longer to wait

before I was old enough to gain entrance to the museum. I wore my black

dress and buttoned leather boots. My black stockings were made of wool,

but I never complained when they itched. If anyone had asked what was

the first word I would use to describe myself, I would have immediately

answered well behaved. But of course, few people know their true natures

at such a tender age.

“Waiters wait and doers don’t.” Maureen’s skin was mottled as if shewere half in shadow, half in sunlight. At certain hours of the day, noon,

for instance, when the sun broke through, she looked illuminated, as if

the beauty inside her was rising up through her ravaged complexion. She

gazed at me with sympathy. “Afraid your daddy will make you pay if you

misbehave?”

I was, of course. I’d seen my father enraged when a player came towork late or broke one of his rules, smoking cigars in public, for instance,

or forming a romantic entanglement with a member of the audience.




He’d taken his cane to a fellow from England who called himself the King

of the Ducks, for this gentleman had flesh in the shape of wings instead

of arms. My father told the King never to return, all because he suspected

him of sipping from a flask of whiskey during museum hours. It was

unfair, of course, considering how much my father liked his rum.

I didn’t need to explain my hesitation to our housekeeper.

“I don’t blame you.” Maureen sighed. Her breath smelled like mint

and rosemary, her favorite kitchen seasonings. “He’d probably have you

running up and down the beach for a whole night without a bit of restto punish you. You’d be limping at the end of it, panting for water, and

he might not forgive you even then. He’s a serious man, and serious men

have serious rules. If you defy them, there will be consequences.”

“Was your boyfriend serious?” I dared to ask. It was a topic Maureen

usually did not speak of.

“Hell, yes,” she said.

I loved the way she used the word hell; it came naturally to her, the

way it did to the men who worked on the docks loading herring and blue -

fish.

“What was his name?”

“Son of shit,” Maureen said evenly.

She always made me laugh.

“Son of a dog’s mother,” she went on, and I laughed again, which eggedher on. “Son of Satan.” I loved it when she grinned. “Son of hell.”

We both stopped laughing then. I understood what she meant. He’d

been a bad man. I’d seen such men on Surf Avenue and along the pier.

Con artists and thieves, the sort a girl learned to stay away from early on.

Coney Island was full of them, and everyone knew the police often looked

the other way when paid off by these crooks. A fiver would get you prettymuch anything you wanted on the streets of Brooklyn, and there were

girls my age who were bought and sold for much less. Some bad fellows




looked friendly, others looked like demons. Maureen always told me you

couldn’t judge a book by its cover, but if anyone should ever call me into

an alleyway, I was to run, no matter what gifts I might be offered. If the

need arose, I could kick a fellow in his knees or in his private parts, and

that would most likely force such an individual to keep his distance.

“You know what love is?” Maureen said to me that day. Usually she

went about her work and was somewhat tight-lipped regarding the

larger issues of life. Now she became more open than usual, perhaps more

like the person she’d been before she’d been scarred. I swung my legs and shrugged. I didn’t know if I was old enough to

discuss such matters. Maureen tenderly ran a hand through my long hair

as she dropped her hard veneer.

“It’s what you least expect.”

WHEN I URNED ten my father called me to him. My birthday was in

March, and I never knew what to expect from that month. Sometimes it

snowed on my birthday, other times there’d be the green haze of spring. I

don’t remember the weather on this particular occasion, during the year

of 1903. I was too excited at having my father focus on me, a circum-

stance that was rare due to the hold his work had over him. Sometimes he

labored in the cellar all night long and didn’t get to his bed until dawn. And so it was a special event for him to turn his attentions to me. When

I approached him shyly, he told me that in good time every secret must be

shared and every miracle called into question. He made a grand event of

my entrance into the museum. We went onto the path outside so we might

go through the front door, as customers did. My father wore a black coat

with tails, very formal, and a top hat he’d brought from France. He hadsharp all-seeing blue eyes and white hair and he spoke with an accent. He

had set globes of electric lights outside the entranceway to the museum.




Sphinx moths floated near, drawn to the bright flares, and I ignored an

urge to catch one in my cupped hands. I was wearing my black dress and

a strand of pearls my mother had left me. I treasured them, but now my

father told me to remove the necklace. He said I should leave off my gloves

as well, which surprised me. I didn’t like to look at my hands.

It was midnight, an hour when the neighborhood was quiet, as it was

the off-season. In the summers there were crowds all night long, and great

waves of excitement and noise in the air. But those hordes of pleasure

seekers would not arrive until the end of May and would continue onuntil the new Mardi Gras celebration to be held in September, a wild

gathering that would become a yearly event where those celebrating lost

all control, and the police Strong-arm Squad would have to be called out

to beat them back to their senses. Te construction in Dreamland was

going ahead full steam as the owners built more and more rides and

exhibitions that would rival any entertainment palace in the world and

be even more impressive than Luna Park. Unlike the other amusement

parks, which some of the wealthier residents of the island called vulgar

and pandering, this one would be as splendid as any entertainment found

in the capitals of Europe, the buildings all starkly white, as if made for the

angels. Because it would be west of us on Surf Avenue, my father feared

it would put us out of business. At night we could hear the roaring of the

lions and tigers in their cages, attractions being trained to be more likedogs or house cats than wild beasts. In this quiet time of the year, seagulls

and terns gathered at twilight in huge calling flocks above the park. Te

steel skeletons of the rides still being constructed were silver in the dark. I

imagined they shivered in anticipation of all they would become.

My father opened the curtains made of heavy plum-colored damask that

hung across the entranceway to the Museum of Extraordinary Tings.




He said I was the evening’s only guest, then bowed and gestured for me

to step over the threshold. I went inside for the first time. Tough I had

managed to spy a few rows of the exhibits from occasionally sneaking a

look, the contents of most had been a bit cloudy from my vantage point

and I could never distinguish a green viper from a poisonous tree frog.

onight the glass jars glittered. Tere was the sweet scent of camphor.

I had looked forward to this day for so long, but now I was faint with

nerves and could hardly take it all in.

Tere was a hired man who often came to care for the living beasts. I’d observed him arriving in a horse-drawn hansom carriage delivering

crates of food for the mysterious inhabitants of the museum. A whirl of

incredible creatures was before me as I stood there: a dragon lizard who

flared his scarlet throat, an enormous tortoise who seemed like a monster

of the deep, red-throated hummingbirds that were let out of their cages on

leashes made of string. When I looked past this dizzying array, I spied my

father’s birthday surprise decorated with blue silk ribbons and garlands of

paper stars. It stood in a place of honor: a large tank of water. On the bot -

tom there were shells gathered from all over the world, from the Indian

Ocean to the China Sea. I did not need my father to tell me what would

be displayed, for there was the sign he’d commissioned an expert crafts-

man to fashion out of chestnut wood and hand-paint in gold leaf.

the human mermaid

Beneath that title was carved one word alone, my name, Coralie.

I did not need further instructions. I understood that all of my life had

been mere practice for this very moment. Without being asked, I slipped

off my shoes. I knew how to swim.

the museum of extraordinary things by alice hoffman

Documents